The Great Animation Challenge

Please upload your submissions for The Great Animation Challenge to this Group. Go on... don't be shy.

What is The Great Animation Challenge I hear you cry? Well please read on my friend...

Animation Forum West Midlands and the organisers of Flip Animation Festival have teamed up to launch The Great Animation Challenge! Several up and coming bands are making a number of tracks freely available for animators across the UK to download and animate to, with the best and brightest screened at Wolverhampton's Light House cinema on 21st July 2009.

Midlands'-based bands Pram (Domino Records) and Epic 45 (Make Mine Music) will be joined by last year's Levi's Ones to Watch tips Laurel Collective (Double Six) and Beat To Paris.

To enter the contest, simply:

1. download one or more of the tracks below
2. create a music video that uses animation for that track
3. upload the finished video to this Great Animation Challenge Vimeo Group anytime before the 6th July deadline
4. contact david.luke.allen@bcu.ac.uk with your full name, email address, phone number and the title of your short
5. the animators behind the best shorts will then be contacted in July for a screening copy of the piece.

The contest is open to animators everywhere and the winner of the best short will receive a subscription to Imagine Magazine and a copy of The Imagine Animation Directory following screenings at the Light House Cinema in Wolverhampton on 21st July 2009. The tracks can be downloaded from this webpage:

animationforumwm.co.uk/news-display.aspx?id=130

To further spike your interest, here's some information on each of the bands:

Pram
The breezy, Birmingham-based experimentalists have produced 15 recordings since 1991, have been compared to the likes of Talk Talk and Stereolab and attracted praise from The Independent's Andy Gill.

Epic 45
"Beguiling and beautiful" said the NME of their album 'May Your Heart Be the Map', whilst Stewart Lee in The Sunday Times adds, "You'll feel like you've been hearing MYHBTM in your head all your life, and were waiting for someone to record it."

Beat To Paris
Attracting 'next big thing' praise from legendary Joy Division and New Order bassist Peter Hook, Beat to Paris featured in 2008's Levi's Ones to Watch tour alongside Late of the Pier, and feature an indie-synth sound that has been likened to Doves.

Laurel Collective
Signed to Double Six Records, this six-piece, melodic outfit from London had a single of the week on Steve Lamacq's 6music show in late 2008 with the brilliantly catchy International Love Affair.